Poison ivy version 1 (take 9) also appeared on "The Essential Collection" and the Australian "Hollies" LP. Takes 10 to 12 are on Abbey Road.

Chris McLaren

Posted:Tue Dec 27, 2005 5:07 am

Dennis

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Lead Guitar
Joined: 17 Feb 2004
Posts: 773
Location: Los Angeles

On the 30th Anniversary "remix" project, several tracks were re-imagined atrociously. In particular "Look Through Any Window", the remix of which could be politely described as a train wreck, and "Yes I Will", which sounds downright limp compared to the original mix. On the plus side, "Bus Stop" has never sounded better, with a nice balance of the vocals and instruments and a pleasing stereo spread.

Thanks to Chris, I got a stereo mix of 'All The World Is Love' today, & it sounds AMAZING!!! This is every bit the equal of what The Beatles were doing around this time!

_________________Let's get down to the real Nitty Gritty!

Posted:Wed Feb 01, 2006 15:12 pm

rocdocmac

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Joined: 14 Oct 2005
Posts: 6
Location: South Africa

Peter Checksfield wrote:
"Thanks to Chris, I got a stereo mix of 'All The World Is Love' today, & it sounds AMAZING!!!"

.........Well, we should actually both thank the great Dr K for this rarity. Tusen takk!

Chris M

Posted:Fri Feb 03, 2006 5:12 am

carlane3

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Banjo
Joined: 06 Sep 2007
Posts: 45
Location: USA

rocdocmac wrote:

"All the world is love" did not appear on the 30th Anniversary Collection and the stereo version of it, therefore, is still at large. Don't get mixed up with "Whole world over" that was issued in stereo on this boxed set!

Chris McLaren

The true stereo version was released on the Hansa Hollies Greatest Hits lp from 1968

Posted:Mon Sep 10, 2007 16:48 pm

Gee

Post subject:

Rythym Guitar
Joined: 16 Jan 2007
Posts: 484

You can find the TRUE stereo version of "All The World is Love" on the old 1968 German "Hollies Greatest Hits " album (Hansa 78575 IT)

It is rather disappointing as Tony's superb "Psychedelic" guitarwork is pushed right into the background....yet the very basic Acoustic guitar "Twangs" are given a whole Stereo channel all to themselves !

Send for Paul Hicks to "Re-mix" this one......!

Posted:Mon Sep 10, 2007 17:48 pm

Gee

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Rythym Guitar
Joined: 16 Jan 2007
Posts: 484

Sorry Carlane !

Posted:Mon Sep 10, 2007 17:50 pm

carlane3

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Banjo
Joined: 06 Sep 2007
Posts: 45
Location: USA

Geoff coles wrote:

Sorry Carlane !

The mix is rather bland to be honest. I'm sure tony could improve on it if the masters still exist, which I would hope they would.

Posted:Mon Sep 10, 2007 20:42 pm

an

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Acoustic Guitar
Joined: 21 Feb 2006
Posts: 199

Some months ago I saw this album (Hollies Greatest Hits - Germany - HANSA) in a second hand music shop in Bruges (Belgium). Maybe it is still for sale there (15 euro).

That album also includes a very odd stereo mix of "Do The Best You Can" (1968)....it has Clarke on one stereo channel....Nash on the other..."Clarke-Hicks-Nash" in mid channel position....Banjos start on both channels...then one quickly fades out !

Posted:Tue Sep 11, 2007 9:32 am

Last edited by Gee on Wed May 26, 2010 17:18 pm; edited 2 times in total

Baz

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Bass Guitar
Joined: 14 Aug 2005
Posts: 53
Location: Liverpool

I'm a little tired of the criticisms that are frequently thrown at the 30th Anniversary collection. "Look Through Any Window" is always the one that gets the harshest criticism and I don't understand why. As far as I'm concerned, ANYTHING is better than those godawful split stereo mixes that we hear too often in pre 1966 Hollies stereo.

However there is some vital info about that one that needs to be stated.

The original 4 track master of that song was one of a handful of Hollies 4 tracks to be wiped back in 1972. EMI had a massive purging of it's multitracks but thankfully, The Beatles, Cliff Richard and The Hollies 4 tracks were retained where possible. ALL Hollies 4 tracks from 1966 onward were preserved but some earlier Hollies tapes slipped through and got junked. Bizarrely, the French version of LTAW was retained. EMI wiped so much stuff it was extraordinary. Did you know for instance no 4 track tapes exist for bands like The Swinging Blue Jeans and Billy J.Kramer? All were wiped. 4 track wise, 60's bands were massacred, but the three artistes mentioned above were generally spared, so it is very very fortunate that the vast majority of Hollies multitracks were kept because the same cannot be said of almost all their fellow label mates.

Ron Furmanek did a very thorough search of the Abbey Road archive and whilst doing so he discovered some interesting things. There are log books detailing every tape that was wiped. Those tapes were singled out and set aside, but before they were destroyed, EMI engineers were invited to play around with them. One engineer created a new stereo mix of LTAW which is the basis of what is on the 30th Anniversary collection. To Ron's dismay, that engineer left in the "ooh" vocals that were not on the mono single master and on the awful stereo mix used on "20 Golden Greats" which always sounded "wrong" to my ears.

What Ron did was very creditable. He decided to try and replicate the single by getting rid of the "oohs" and to do that, he spliced in a part from the 4 track French version, and covered it as best as he possibly could. So, what you actually hear is a rough mix made back in 1972 with a careful edit by Ron to remove the vocals that shouldn't had been there. I find it far preferable to the ghastly mix with all the vocals in one channel and instruments in the other.

Ron also synched up 2 4 track tapes to create a "correct" stereo mix of "King Midas In Reverse" since it always bugged him how different the vocals were on the stereo mix. He created a brand new mix in stereo but replicating all the elements heard on the mono single master. Graham Nash was delighted by this mix but unfortunately when it came to compiling the masters, that mix has somehow vanished and Ron was forced to use the same mix we've always had.

Thanks to Ron we did get a lot of first time stereo. Sadly, a lot of them remain officially unreleased in the UK. Ron also put that together as a 2 CD package concentrating on the rarities. However, The Hollies and their management got involved and insisted on more hits being added as well as some new tracks, totally destroying Ron's original concept and vision for the package.

I can accept why not everyone would like some of those new stereo mixes - I personally didn't like "Pay You Back With Interest" but on the whole, most of them sound great... a particular fave being "Not That Way At All" which sounds wonderful. But, I think Ron's work has been unfairly criticised on that project since his intentions were genuinely honorable and he was sad that the project ended up being taken out of his hands and having an extra disc of material added. Like I said, his intention was simply to create a 2 CD rarities package but politics changed all that and we ended up with an uneasy compromise.

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